Reducing abuse of science

[DAVIDESCOTT]

There are a lot of people complaining/bragging about finishing the entire science tree in as little as two launches. It seems clear that the only way to do this is with a full-on kerbalization of the the process. If you lack decouplers use a bunch of SRBs configured to overheat at just the right moment. Landing legs optional, etc...

While its an interesting challenge I think it does constitute abuse of the system and shouldn't be possible in the final release. I also think it is evidence that the current system whereby power consumption is the major limiting factor on the amount of science that can be gained is deeply flawed. I would suggest dramatically reducing the power consumption of transmitters and instead implementing any combination of the following approaches:

1. Transmitters are not initially available, everything must be recovered from landings.

2. Limit the number of components that can be placed on a launch vehicle by the tech level. The initial launch vehicle might have to be made of as few as 4 parts (essentially mandating a suborbital flight).

3. Limit currency/science is converted to currency (presumably by the government).

4. Make exploding rockets more explodey (and eliminate the SRB overheat as a decoupler).

5. Big penalties for abandoning kerbonauts in deep space (this might require some kind of life-support addition which might be on the do not suggest list).

I welcome any others that might be suggested.

Edited October 17, 2013 by DAVIDESCOTT

[UbioZur]

I will quote and link harvester about the tech tree:

If you're the sort of player who can max out the tech tree in 5 missions, then in all likelihood you already have a pretty good notion of what all the parts are and what they're meant to do.

The tech tree is balanced to introduce, not to restrict. If we made it challenging to veteran players, we'd be making it downright impossible for new ones.

That said, tweaking the definitions is not only something we expected already, but I'm actually looking forward to see what you guys come up with.

Happy tweaking.

Cheers

Source: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53140-ScienceDefs-cfg?p=705181&viewfull=1#post705181

[Awaras]

Limiting number of components will come into play once money is implemented. It's easy to say 'Add moar boosters' when they are free. It's a different story when you actually have to pay for them.

[DAVIDESCOTT]

If we made it challenging to veteran players we'd be making it downright impossible for new ones

That's exactly my point though. I think the current "electrical power is the limiting factor" does make it downright possible for new ones. Yes an experienced player can deal the complex interactions and trade-offs involved in managing power consumption through transmission vs. power generation from timed burns vs. power needed to keep the reaction wheels going, and generate 400 science on their first launch. A novice is going to feel that they did well to get 30 science on their first launch.

The novice are going to struggle just to keep the craft pointed up, to add to that a demand they must properly time their experiments and transmissions to have the power needed to complete their experiments just seems like too much to ask. The limitations I am suggesting would actually make the game easier for the novice. Everyone's first flight is a simple suborbital launch and splashdown. Yes its more scripted but it gives that novice player some time to ramp up to the real game. Think of the first 5 flights as the introductory level you see in other games. After those first few flights then maybe take the kid-gloves off and allow people to really go crazy.

When someone says they complete the tech tree in two flights, I think that can be really damaging to the player experience of others. Imagine if the first time you sat down to play Mario you were next to some guy took advantage of a bug used by speed-runners to complete the entire game in 2 minutes. I realize the game isn't a competition, but people are by nature competitive and if there is nothing to compete for that's going to hurt the game.

[firefueled]

I was going to create a thread but you are touching on the two main things I wanted to say.

It is frustrating to not know what I have to do to gain science and there is no explanation on when I should transmit the data. There seems to be a data transmission "meta/mini-game" that is not obvious.

Data transmission costs way too much and electricity available is way too scarce. I have unlocked the first item on the 45-science-tier but have 4 kerbals, with more than 80 science in total on them, dead or stranded due to lack of electricity to transmit data or use on the SAS.

On my last flight, I sent a second ship to Mün, with as much electricity as possible, to try and recover the data the first ship had gathered and wasn't able to transmit.

I didn't know if the data gathered by the first one was going to decrease the amount the second would be able to get.

I didn't know if I could send the data the first one got via the second ship.

I didn't know if I could even make it to the same spot a second time.

The only thing I did know was that I would not be able to send all the data both ship had.

In the end, the time spent to get the second ship close to the first and finally send the data got me 16 science. Frustrating.

How to fix this:

Make very clear how to gain and when to more efficiently transmit data.

Decrease the amount of electricity used to transmit.

Make solar panels, or batteries, available right at the start (I noticed I was going to have problems with electricity on the first flight).

[Wheffle]

I don't know if limiting parts on a ship (beyond a budget) or mandating anything would be good for a free-form game like KSP.

I personally don't mind that some people can unlock the whole tree in two flights. I definitely can't, and most people, especially noobs, won't be able to. Anyway, if it is addressed, I think it's best addressed after all the parts of career mode are in the game. Some things may self-balance after the budget and other things factor in.

[DAVIDESCOTT]

There seems to be a data transmission "meta/mini-game" that is not obvious.

That is a really great way to describe it. One thing I think is ridiculous about the current system is that a good player will know that while his rocket is throttled up and flying in the atmosphere he needs to be actively clicking to generate and transmit crew reports. When he is 30,000m above the ground on a sub-orbital flight he is supposed to get out and perform an EVA. If this is supposed to be something like a tutorial... then that is just insane!!

For the brand new player on his very first flight THE ONLY thing that player should be doing is keeping his rocket pointed up. Nothing else. As it stands the game is this really confusing and weird mini game that doesn't make a lot of sense.

Why do I generate science for going on an EVA on Kerbal? WTF? Why do I get science for rocks from the home planet? A novice player will never thing to do that.

I get extra science for different areas where I take samples... It makes logical sense, but the current game graphics don't do enough to really distinguish the planets so its hard to know how to configure your orbits in order to get those benefits. What is high vs low mun orbit? I don't know where the cut-off is so I have to play the mini game where I check the crew-report every 10000m.

As it currently stands I find the science gathering to be harder than the real game (partly because I refuse to cheat and won't go Scott Manley style and build a rocket that intentionally explodes), and I am not a novice. I can only imagine how confusing this will be to a brand-new player.

There are some really good ideas but they need to be isolated. First flight being and SRB supported sub-orbital launch makes excellent sense. Getting science for flying over different areas of Kerbal or the Mun make sense, but it needs to be clear to the player what those areas are. Something like the Kethane map might be useful. Perhaps even better get rid of the whole manual crew report nonsense and have it automatically trigger for each area. Store the crew report that gives the most science benefit and automatically dump the others. If there is some desire to keep the transmission parts then automatically transmit provided there will be sufficient power afterwards/reduce the transmission power requirements.

I'm currently playing the modded tree: "KSP-TV’ Yargnit’s Tree" and its actually an enjoyable process to build up to something like a real mun landing. A big part of that comes from transmission not entering the game until after the first few launches. It means you don't have to spam transmissions in low Kerbal orbit, and you have the batteries you need to support some real scientific research. Its much more enjoyable than losing kerbonauts to dead spaceships in munar orbit.

[allmhuran]

The criticism is absolutely legitimate if we make the assumption that the tech tree is intended to represent "post-sandbox" content. In other words, "end goal" style features that provide challenges and motivation to experienced players and new players alike. This is the kind of thing most of us think of as what constitutes career mode.

But the assumption is incorrect. The purpose of the tech tree is *not* to start to fill this role in career mode. It is better to think of the tech tree in the way you think of the first few minutes, or missions, of any other game. You can hear about this in the interview Scott Manley did with Felipe:

"the purpose is to just give players a system that introduces the game gradually to them so that they're not completely lost by this insurmountable wall of content that you get on a first time playthrough"

http://youtu.be/CupGRIL2h64?t=7m15s

Based on what Felipe was saying, the 0.22 tech tree is exactly the same as what we see in this video, from about 4:40 (the first few minutes of Crysis):

http://youtu.be/O-aKccXhV_Q?t=4m42s

Notice how it pops up text hints on how to do things. It forces the player to crouch if they want to progress, and tells them how. It forces them to pick up an object if they want to progress, and tells them how. It gives them an enemy who isn't even looking at them so they can get the feel of how to aim and shoot.

It's a tutorial that's incorporated into the game. There's no attempt to make it difficult for experienced players, because that would defeat the purpose. Experienced players simply get it over with and move on to the "real" content.

The tech tree does the same thing. It forces new players to know the basics (ensures that they do, if you prefer that phrasing), by locking the advanced stuff away behind science points.

We simply do not have the "real" career mode content in KSP - YET.

Now, having said that, it is certainly true that as a tutorial there are still a few elements missing. The fact that you can even take, and then send, crew reports, eva reports, samples, etc, is not obvious, and nor is it shown anywhere. No new training scenarios have been added to cover this. So I would say that even as a tutorial, the content is unfinished.

[DAVIDESCOTT]

"the purpose is to just give players a system that introduces the game gradually to them so that they're not completely lost by this insurmountable wall of content that you get on a first time playthrough"

That is my criticism. Its is NOT suitable as a tutorial. Its an opaque and insurmountably complex mini-game involving going on EVA at illogical times which is only fun for the really advanced players who see it as a new challenge. Its a terrible tutorial system. If you wanted a tutorial you could accomplish that without the tech tree.

[allmhuran]

That is my criticism. Its is NOT suitable as a tutorial

Yes, I agree, as I said:

Now, having said that, it is certainly true that as a tutorial there are still a few elements missing. The fact that you can even take, and then send, crew reports, eva reports, samples, etc, is not obvious, and nor is it shown anywhere. No new training scenarios have been added to cover this. So I would say that even as a tutorial, the content is unfinished.

[Magma]

just wait till the cc's (money) and unlock costs are implemented...

[GeneralPolaris]

I've played this game since a while back. I never really got super into it getting Jool or those really crazy places when they were added. I played the career mode and found it a lot of fun. Not only that but I learned how to better manage some stuff with designing and controlling my rockets. The science game me goals to do things. When I figured out you can get science from different places on Kerbin I started making planes to reach them and did some things I wouldnt have tried before like trying to land one ontop of a mountain. Its a lot harder to do especially when you didn't even have landing gear and just kinda crash landed ontop of it. Well anyways what I'm saying is it gave me goals to reach for and finding these strange quirks to getting science made the game fun. I also made my first time landing on minmus with small parts which was really exciting for me. Getting the science wasn't farming it. It was more of an exploration.

Basically what I'm saying is these things that all of y'all are complaining about makes absolutely no difference to what a new player would see. I doubt they care about getting science in mass. It gave me an adventure to figuring out the game. It was fun. I'm sure what the career mode was meant to do.

[jwenting]

well said Polaris, learned more in a few hours playing career mode than months muddling about with ever bigger monstrosities of rockets that never seemed to get me much more than the small ones I use now.

And it's fun, trying to figure out whether to unlock that next expensive stage first in one branch or to open up another branch to more low tech options.

[Commander Zoom]

For what it's worth, in its current (early, incomplete, barely documented) form, this experienced player took several flights just to get to Tier 3. I didn't think to take samples of and around the launch pad, or realize that there were observations of Kerbin to be taken from orbit BUT ONLY from EVA, not from just looking down from the cabin window. (Is this deliberate, that you can't get a good look except by opening the hatch and climbing outside, or a coding limitation?) I had to get that by reading the forums. Others would probably get it from YouTube. The point is, even to someone who's been playing since before there was a Mun to go to, a lot of this stuff is not obvious. Now try to imagine a true newbie, which no one reading this post is. Such a player wouldn't know (as I did) to conserve electricity with minimal maneuvering / use of the reaction wheel, or to optimize the recharge provided by the engines by making reports while they're running, not to mention all the basic skills of merely reaching orbit that you and I now take for granted.

There's always going to be those who can reach the Mun with nothing more than ten SRBs, one strut, and a capsule made of cardboard, tinfoil and chewing gum. But those are the outliers, the 1%. If we start building the game around them, or thinking we should, then a lot of people are going to get left behind and/or give up.

Edited October 18, 2013 by Commander Zoom

[jfx]

That is my criticism. Its is NOT suitable as a tutorial. Its an opaque and insurmountably complex mini-game involving going on EVA at illogical times which is only fun for the really advanced players who see it as a new challenge. Its a terrible tutorial system. If you wanted a tutorial you could accomplish that without the tech tree.

There is no downside in doing stuff like high atmosphere EVAs much later. Someone new to the game will hardly be interested in speedrunning the science tree. They will need more missions, yes - but so what. Once you are done with science it's back to mods anyways. Stock equals boredom if you are around long enough.

[DAVIDESCOTT]

There is no downside in doing stuff like high atmosphere EVAs much later.

I think there is. Its not a downside in that you don't get the points, its a downside in the feeling that you aren't progressing. The feeling of progression in the game is going to come from flying to or landing on the next moon or planet. It feels annoying to me to know that you can get to Jool and perform experiments there but still have points to accumulate upon landing back on Kerbol. Where is the progression? Why did we go there when there was still stuff to do here.

[HaDeZs]

In the end its not about a timeline progression. Its about adding an achievable value in the game for people to acquire and give the same sandbox mentality where people can acquire it the way they want to. I don't think the game should put more constraints on people, the tree is constraining already but its a great tool to get people into the game and learn to build. If I want to get science by building a jet and flying around kerbal one day and the next morning I wake up and want to practice flyby's on the moons for science then I should be free to do so. I think this update is excellent in its execution and it gives the devs at kerbal a GREAT base of idea's to grow the "endgame" out.

Anyways, I'm on the same spaceboat as Polaris. I played with the game a while back but there was no real goal for the game aside from a rocket physics engine. This update changed that for a lot of people that play games like I do and have the same view. Like, I can sit and play for hours on some minecraft servers building and playing around on the server but if I go on my own private server I won't build or do anything. I loved the idea of kerbal, just got bored with the lack of goals in the game. Plus the plethora of parts available at the start is very daunting and hard for a newbie to jump into without spending hours on youtube watching scott videos =)